


an angel held me like a child

by aukusti



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Letters, Living Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22470961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aukusti/pseuds/aukusti
Summary: When Goro is twelve years old, he writes himself a letter.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 13
Kudos: 157
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	an angel held me like a child

When Goro is twelve years old, he writes himself a letter.

 _Dear Goro_ , it reads.

(He finds it tucked away in a drawer, hidden in the back of a picture frame that doesn’t have the smiling family that wasn’t his moved from the front.)

_I hope you’re in a nice home right now! Do you still talk with Takeda-kun?_

(His breath catches in his throat. Goro hasn’t thought about Takeda, one of the only friends he ever had as a child, in years. He starts to wonder if he’s alright.)

_I’m writing this to you (to me?) because I’m moving again. They were nice parents and I think I’ll miss them. They gave me a picture frame to put a picture of ours in, so I will!_

(He remembers the night he had proudly placed the picture next to his night stand at the group home he had been sent to. A boy, maybe fifteen, told him to put it away if he didn’t want anything to happen to it. His big eyes had made him looked starved in the dim light as he stared at the picture of Goro smiling with his old foster family until it was out of sight.)

Beginning to feel the first waves of nausea after so many memories were pushing their way to the front of his mind, his eyes go to the bottom of the page.

_Please eat well! The teachers at this school keep looking at me and I don’t know what to tell them... I hope you’re okay, wherever you are! See you soon!_

And that was that. Goro let the page fall from his hand, and the walls grew eyes. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, shaky breath grating against his ribcage in a way that was reserved for the moon as it spilled over his form as he worked through things not meant to see the light of day.

Sliding down to the floor, hugged between drawers and the frame of his bed, Goro draws up his knees and wraps his arms around them, lowering his head as he tries to breathe.

He thinks about calling Ann, thinks about focusing on the _breathe in, breathe out_ of his rattling chest, thinks about too much in such a short period of time it makes him feel like he’s coming undone. He is eight years old again, nine, ten, eleven—journeying through time and space, he notices himself fading from the present.

And then, the sound of a key sliding into a lock.

He feels dizzy as he lifts his head, trying to remember who he is and where he is and _why_ , why why why why—

“Honey, I’m home!”

There’s the sound of shoes shuffling on the welcome mat, a gentle thump as they’re placed against the wall. Through the depths of his mind, it clicks: Akira is here. Akira is here, with a key that Goro gave him not too long ago. Akira is here and he's going to see his boyfriend in a pathetic heap on the floor, and yet he can barely find the strength to change that.

“Goro?” Akira calls, and there’s some more noise. “I brought things for dinner tonight. Where'd you go?”

He still can’t move, can’t speak, so he waits the two minutes it takes for Akira to wander into his bedroom, saying, “If you're hiding, I swear—” until the door slides open and Akira says, “Goro?” with all the urgency in the world before he realizes he’s being tugged away from the corner he'd backed himself into.

“Hey,” Akira murmurs, and Goro notices that the arms around him are no longer his own. “Are you alright?”

Keeping his eyes downcast and opening his mouth once, twice, proves fruitless. Trying to speak is trying to dredge up words from a child that had been kept away from everyone.

Goro settles for burying his face into Akira’s shoulder.

(This happens sometimes. Akira has been there a few times, when Goro started to drift far out of his mind’s orbit and into the dimension of things dealt with in the past, pulling him back with calming hands and hushed tones.)

The sensation of Akira’s finger tips (warm, always warm) tracing over the back of his neck pulls him from his thoughts once again.

“Can we move to the bed?” Akira’s voice was never far behind his hands, leaning his face into the side of his head.

He would probably regret this—would probably regret giving Akira a key to his apartment, easy access into the damning walls of his skull, would probably regret letting himself be seen like this yet again.

But right now, he can barely form coherent thought, much less speak. The marble that rolls around in his head when it’s empty made itself known as he gives a jerky nod, and Akira stands up then, wrapping an arm around Goro’s waist and shouldering most of his weight as he pulls him up and guides him gently to sit once more, this time on his bed.

Goro instinctively curls in on himself, and he feels Akira’s worried eyes lingering over his crumpled frame.

“What happened?” Akira finally asks, rubbing the curve between Goro’s neck and his shoulder, and it feels like he’s being pulled down again, back to being nine, thinking about some of the few adults who would tend to his bruises and ask in pitiful tones, _What happened? What happened, Goro?_

He inhales sharply, grounding himself on Akira’s touch alone. _Give and take_ , he reminds himself.

“Later,” Goro croaks out.

It seems to be enough, for now, if Akira’s hurried nod is anything to go by. Tugging the blankets out under his body, and draping them over him, Akira sounds hesitant when he asks, “Should I...?”

“Mmf,” is all Goro can muster, but that’s enough, too; Akira settles in beside him, pulling him close.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs, even though Goro hasn’t felt anything nearing ‘alright’ in what feels like quite some time now.

Shutting his eyes, Goro Akechi hopes he would not dream.

# —

Goro dreams.

Walking through what is probably Shibuya, it seems normal enough; he doesn’t know where he’s going, and for once, he doesn’t care.

“Akechi?”

Turning around, he sees Takeda. In his mind, he knows this is him, is looking at what he figures an older version of him would look like: dark hair a bit shorter than his own, round glasses, a friendly smile.

Really, he might just look a bit like Akira.

Goro tries to say hello, but no sound comes out. In a panic, he tries again, Takeda looking amused all the while.

“You’ve never been good at this,” Takeda says cheerfully.

Clawing at his throat, no words will come out, no matter how hard he wills them to. Takeda’s face becomes something less pleasant and more contorted, mouth opening as if he were going to yell, and the scenery shifts.

He is sitting at Leblanc’s counter, but nobody is there. He turns in his chair to find the television off, no pesky regulars seated in a booth towards the corner.

His voice seems to be working this time, a tentative “Hello?” the only sound that fills the air. It sounds garbled to his ears. Sojiro is nowhere to be seen, and glancing to the attic, he wonders if Akira is up there.

Slowly rising from his seat, he hears the sound of discordant notes every time he takes a step forward. It takes all of his willpower to not stop moving with every harsh noise, to keep edging towards the stairs that lead into the attic.

And then, a knock at the door.

Turning around, he sees there’s no one there. He’s about to keep making his way up when the knock becomes the sound of someone banging on it, and it gives him whiplash to see Akira standing there, completely soaked when it hadn't been raining before.

It _wasn’t_ raining, a detail he can barely process as he runs for the door. It feels far, so far, Goro running and running towards something he knows is right there. Akira is pounding away and saying something he can’t decipher as the noise gets increasingly louder with every step he continues taking.

He reaches it, and yanks it open with a strength he didn’t know he had in him. Outside, it is silent—eerie and still, suffocating.

Akira looks at him, soaked to the bone and Goro is reaching for him when he says, “What did you do?”

He freezes. He notices Akira isn’t blinking as he looks to the side, and he follows with his own eyes. There are birds, dozens of them, laying on the floor. They are still and unmoving, and it feels like he is choking on how much death he is always surrounded by.

“Akira,” this voice doesn’t belong to him, but it comes out of his mouth anyway, “I didn’t—”

“They’re coming,” Akira says, and birds start falling from the sky again.

# —

He wakes up shuddering, and there are hands on his face in an instant paired with Akira’s voice saying, “I’m here, I’m here.”

Akira _is_ there, warm and tangible, and knowing Goro wouldn’t wake up to the dark gives him the peace of mind to open his eyes. His bedside lamp is on and Akira is peering down at him wearing a small, worried smile. His eyebrows are drawn together and Goro frowns, lifting his hand to smooth the creases in his skin. “You’re too young for wrinkles.”

Akira clicks his tongue, hand grabbing onto Goro’s own. “I know. You are too, but we still have anti-aging cream, don’t we?”

“I heard it was good,” he mumbles as he sits up, his response lost to the sound of rustling sheets. They look at each other, joined hands resting in the small space between them.

Goro opens his mouth to apologize, but Akira makes a noise before he can even say anything. “Don’t even think about it,” he says, pushing up his glasses with his free hand. “It’s okay. It happens.”

He nods, slowly, too tired to argue at that moment. He’ll find some way to make it up to him later. Akira nods back, and purses his lips. “Uh,” he starts, and clears his throat. “Are you okay, though?”

Goro takes a moment to think about it. He feels as if he’s been emotionally beaten to a pulp and he has a headache. “I feel like shit,” he says after a moment, and Akira tries not to smile.

“Before we talk about it,” because he knows Akira will want to talk about it, “can we move somewhere else?”

Akira nods, and they make their way to the living room. The sun is setting, the blinds on the windows always open so they could both see their favorite times of day. They don’t turn any lights on.

Goro sits on one edge of the couch and Akira sits on the other, facing each other again. “So,” Goro says. “That was... messy. I’m sorry.”

Akira’s already frowning, so he keeps talking. “I know you don’t want it, but let me say it anyway.”

Huffing, Akira fixes him with a look. “There are worse things, Goro.”

“To you,” Goro insists. His eyes focus on the sky outside, bursting with oranges and pinks. It reminds him of birthday cake. “I found something from when I was a child.”

He takes a breath, trying to gather himself before unraveling all over again. “It was a letter I wrote to myself. It was something the kids I met did sometimes, when they were just put in the system. Or when they were about to get out of it, when they were,” he forces the word out, “adopted.”

Akira’s eyes are on him but he doesn’t meet them, looking on towards the changing sky; it looks more of a muted purple, in that moment. “I didn’t read the whole thing, though. I wrote about a friend I haven’t thought of in years and...”

A pause. He tries for light laughter but it sounds self-deprecating to his own ears. “Well. You saw how that turned out.” Glancing at Akira, he finds him looking like he wants to say something very badly. Goro sighs dramatically, gesturing to him with his hand. “Okay. I’m ready.”

“You’re so mean to yourself,” Akira says immediately, and even if Goro feels he should have grown used to his honesty, it still doesn’t stick. “Like, it’s okay. Really. To feel things even when they’re... ugly.”

“I didn’t have that luxury before,” he responds. It feels like the words are trying to stick to the back of his throat. “To feel things. Ugly or not.”

“I know,” he watches Akira say before looking back out at the sky. Infinite patience drips from it into Akira’s heart. Goro wonders what that’s like.

It’s silent for a while as Goro watches the sky fade into a splotchy sort of dark, the kind he likes best, and Akira watches him. He feels movement more than he sees it, eyes still trained upwards, until there’s a touch on his hand. Glancing to the side, he’s met with Akira’s face just a few inches from his own. His eyes aren't grey like they were yesterday morning, stormy and contemplative as he frowned at an instruction manual for an hour.

They look bright and pensive even through the dark they were enveloped in. It makes Goro’s throat seize up and he clears it once before saying, “You can read it, if you want. I’m not sure if I will, though.” He clears his throat again.

Illuminated only by the faint light of street lamps outside, Akira nods, shadows moving across his face as he does so. “Would you want to talk about it then?” he murmurs, his other hand going to rest on Goro’s cheek.

“Maybe,” Goro concedes, even if he would much rather never think about it again. Akira probably knows that, though, but he nods anyway. Akira tucks some hair behind his ear, and he leans into the touch.

“What time is it?” he asks, and he tries to push down the sense of embarrassment of not knowing something so simple, especially after everything that had happened today.

Akira moves the hand that was resting on Goro’s to reach into his pocket. “It is,” he says as he pulls out his phone, and squints as brightness spills over his face. “Almost seven p.m. Want to order out for dinner?”

“That’s a good idea.” Akira pats his cheek before standing up to order something over the phone. He stretches his arms above his head before letting out a sigh, following Akira into the kitchen.

Akira’s just gotten off the phone when he arrives and Goro is hit with a sudden realization. “Akira,” he starts slowly. “Didn't you get groceries for dinner?”

“Oh, I did.” Akira steps around him to open the fridge, gesturing inside at every space that wasn't empty. “Now we have things for tomorrow’s lunch.”

“And that's not wasteful,” he says, even if his voice carries a question. Food was touchy for him, at times a delicate subject as he tries to leave behind a life of frugality and malnutrition.

“It’s not wasteful,” confirms Akira, closing the fridge and opening his arms.

Goro steps into them, back pressed to Akira’s chest. Closing his eyes, he feels Akira drop his head into the side of his neck, pressing his lips against it.

It’s comfortable. He’s yet to figure out how and why Akira is so warm all the time, but even when they're in bed and he slides his own cold hands up his shirt to rest on his sides, Akira only grumbles about Goro’s ungodly circulation.

“I’m glad you're here,” Goro says, voice even. And he _is_ —it feels less like an apartment and more like home, with most of his things and more of Akira’s with each passing day.

He could tell him why. Like how he had gotten a ridiculously good price on his too big mattress that had felt more like a raft when he woke up in a cold sweat, but not anymore. He could tell Akira how his hands on his face was his favorite feeling in the world. He could tell him how every time he heard the door unlocking, he was reminded that he was more found than lost.

But he doesn't, not right now. His throat lingers with a phantom pain from earlier and he feels like he might cry from how much adoration he didn't know he was capable of holding. Goro lets himself be held in his kitchen to the sound of his refrigerator humming and the light overhead buzzing just the slightest bit.

Akira might know. He always feels that Akira knows even when he doesn’t have the words, the way he feels his mouth press a little harder on his neck in response.

There's a swift knock on the door that nearly causes Goro to jump out of his skin. He swears quietly as Akira laughs at him, pressing a firm kiss to next to his eye before going to answer it.

“Oh!” he hears from the direction Akira had gone in. He's about to go see what happened when Ann bursts into the kitchen, and the wide smile she's wearing confuses him more than her presence does.

“Ann?” He says dubiously, even though it is, in fact, Ann. “What are you doing here?”

She looks like she's about to split at the seams. “I got the job!” It takes him a second to realize she means a modeling opportunity that she had been waiting to hear back from for weeks.

It makes a smile spread on his own face, something so easy he doesn't even have to think about it. “Ann,” he says, and his voice is softer than it has been the whole day. She laughs as they meet in a hug, and he wonders when his kitchen became such a sentimental place.

“That’s incredible,” he says, and he means it. “I’m so happy for you.”

Ann laughs again, breathy in his ear and he feels his shirt dampen where she's laying her cheek.

“Without me?” Akira’s leaning against the refrigerator and the warmth in his eyes makes Goro feel choked up all over again.

Ann sniffles loudly into Goro’s shoulder. “Okay, I’m done now!” She removes herself with one last sniffle and fans her face with one hand. “Sorry for stopping by without saying anything, I was in the area and I got too excited to go home.” She looks at Akira, then Goro, then back at Akira. “Are you guys okay?”

“It's been... a day,” is all Akira says and Goro nods when Ann turns to him for clarification. “We ordered dinner, if you want to stay for a while.”

“Duh,” Ann says, and that settles that.

The food arrives shortly after and they eat it on the couch, watching reality television and yelling at the screen. It feels nice to get out of his head, to feel like a person again squished between two of the people he cares for the most.

After Ann leaves after nearly squeezing the life out of both of them, they begin their nightly routine of getting into bed. Akira digs out a worn Featherman shirt that he likes to wear to sleep best, and Goro turns on the mushroom shaped nightlight next to the door. Goro brushes his teeth while Akira washes his face, and vice versa.

And then, bed. Akira waits for Goro to settle under the blankets before switching the light off and laying down next to him. Akira looks at him in the dark, unwavering, and Goro waits.

“I'm really happy for Ann,” Akira says, stretching his hand to rest on Goro’s face.

“I am too,” Goro responds, and he means it more than he could put into words.

Akira hums, rubbing his thumb up and down his cheek. “How are you feeling?”

“I... I'm not really sure yet.” His words are slow, deliberate. Certainty had become a safety net in his teenage years, one he had clung to by any means necessary to ensure he'd stay alive. Things were different now, and there were still things he was trying to fully adjust to, like honesty. “We’ll see.”

Akira nods, the sheets rustling with his movements. Goro lifts his hand to cover the one Akira has on his face, resting it between them both.

Goro gives it a squeeze. “Thank you,” he murmurs. Akira squeezes back before leaning in to press a kiss to his mouth, soft and firm in a way that makes Goro feel more love than he ever knew existed.

And then they fall asleep to the sound of each other's breathing, a fuzzy shadow from their mushroom nightlight illuminating part of the wall and the foot of their bed, and Goro dreams of nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> this took me a while to write because it felt too personal  
> twitter @hanayo  
> title is from a yeule song of the same name
> 
> thank u for reading <3


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